Sharon Tate

Maxwell S. Keith, the defense attorney for two members of the Manson family who went to prison for their roles in the grisly 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, died Tuesday of natural causes in the San Luis Obispo County town of Templeton, his family said. He was 87.

Keith entered the sensational case in December 1970 when he was appointed by the court to replace the attorney for Leslie Van Houten, the former prom queen charged with murdering Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and conspiring to kill Sharon Tate and four others.

He took over her defense just before closing arguments and had only a few weeks to review more than 18,000 pages of court documents. The trial ended in a hung jury....

Related "Sharon Tate" Articles

Maxwell S. Keith, the defense attorney for two members of the Manson family who went to prison for their roles in the grisly 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, died Tuesday of natural causes in the San Luis Obispo County town of Templeton, his family said. He...

Susan Atkins, who committed one of modern history's most notorious crimes when she joined Charles Manson and his gang for a string of killings in 1969 that terrorized Los Angeles and put her in prison for the rest of her life, has died. She was 61. ...